It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas 🥰🎄Had the most amazing experience seeing @mammamiamusical at the #NovelloTheatre last night!! Thanks so much to one of my girls @missame20 for taking me as a Christmas treat! Anyone who knows me knows how much I LOVE anything Mamma Mia / ABBA and this was just purely amazing!! All the cast were incredible - especially the woman who played Tanya, such an amazing actress she portrayed the character SO well exactly as Christine Baranski does! Had me creasing 🤣 Deffo recommend, it was amazing💓💓!!

SIROCCO: On this date in 1927 there occurred one of the most disastrous opening nights in West End history. The two giants of British theatre - Noel Coward and Ivor Novello - had joined forces for what was to be their only artistic collaboration. The two had enjoyed a friendly rivalry, with Coward quipping "The two most beautiful things in the world are Ivor's profile and my mind." Coward wrote a play called SIROCCO, and for reasons best known to himself, asked Novello to play a vibrant macho Italian stud. Woefully miscast, Ivor soon saw that the play would be a disaster, and it all led to a deeply catastrophic opening night. With catcalls, booing and indecent remarks flying from the gallery, the curtain fell on a miserable cast. But director Basil Dean mistook jeering for cheering and kept ringing up the curtain numerous times whilst the helpless hapless cast faced the wrath of the crowd. Outraged, Coward insisted on taking his author's bow - which only enraged the audience even further - and in an act of defiance he led the blubbering leading lady Frances Doble forward for yet another bow herself. Poor Miss Doble, stunned, went onto autopilot and to the astonishment of the entire house broke into her pre-planned curtain speech - written when anticipating a hit - and through her blubbering tears and streaming mascara announced to the audience: "Ladies and gentlemen, this is the happiest night of my life!" This was all too much for Ivor, who fell about laughing hysterically whilst Noel turned purple with rage. The curtain fell for the final time on the ill-fated, doomed SIROCCO. And needless to say it was to be the end of the Coward/Novello partnership ... but for many years afterwards SIROCCO became a byword for a disastrous first night.("I say, how was the opening of your show?" "Sirocco, I'm afraid, old boy!") #noelcoward#ivornovello#noelcowardtheatre#novellotheatre#musicaltheatre#musicaltheater#gay#instagay#gayicon#olivierawards#sirocco#disaster#flop#openingnight#basildean#francesdoble#broadway#westend#westendtheatre#privatelives#blithespirit#hayfever#presentlaughter#gosfordpark#glamorousnight#gaystheword#perchancetodream